The action took place on the National Day to Combat Piracy
The entity's legal director, Manoel Antônio dos Santos, explains that the crime of software piracy brings concern not only to the technology sector and the consumer, but also to society by failing to collect revenue and taxes, which could be reverted in the form of benefits for education and health, in addition to being directly linked to organized crime. “It is also important to highlight that, through ABES, software companies affected by the crime of piracy still have to bear the costs of storing and logistical material seized for years until the process is concluded and the material receives authorization to be destroyed".
According to the jurist, when ABES started working against software piracy in Brazil, in the 1980s, the piracy rate reached more than 90%. Today, after a lot of awareness work and new ways of commercializing software licenses, the index has dropped to 50%, but it is still worrying. With the migration of a large part of piracy to the virtual environment, the entity has invested heavily in its Internet Monitoring service and in the Anonymous Denouncement Portal against Software Piracy http://www.denunciopirataria.org.br/.
According to the entity, until November 2015, the ABES Internet Monitoring service was able to remove around 65,000 ads, links and sites with content that gave access to files that violate the Software Copyright of the entity's members. “We achieved a significant reduction in recent years, but it took more than three decades for us to still live with half of the computer programs used in Brazil without authorization for use. Therefore, we know that there is still much to be done regarding intellectual property in Brazil”, says Manoel Antônio dos Santos.
The destruction was carried out by the company Plasnoi Comércio de Plásticos, using a crusher mill, which fragmented all the material for recycling.
10 years
For a retrospective of the ten years since the National Day to Combat Piracy was instituted, the OAB, São Paulo Section, together with the National Council to Combat Piracy, promoted on December 3, at the OAB/SP headquarters, a event to evaluate the advances achieved and the challenges for the next ten years. At the meeting, which had the support of several entities dealing with the issue and an exhibition of counterfeit products, ABES, which is part of the CNPC, was represented by the member of the entity's Intellectual Property Committee, Rodrigo Leme, manager for America Latina in the area of unauthorized uses at Adobe, a lawyer specializing in civil proceedings and Master in Diffuse and Collective Rights from PUC/SP, who participated in the panel “Online Piracy – New Directions for Combating Piracy”.